The Résumé of Albert Hadley

A look at some of Hadley's influential designs.

Designer Albert Hadley is still a force to be reckoned with in the design world. Here, we take a look at two of the homes he designed. Can you choose a favorite? We can't!

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Fernando Bengoechea

Albert Hadley

The dean of design himself, Albert Hadley.

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Fernando Bengoechea

A Grand Living Room

Hadley chose a flattering parchment color for the living room walls. An untitled painting by William Auerbach-Levy dominates the wall above a large 19th-century bookcase with cane shelves. On ebonized floors, two of Hadley's signature zebra-pattern hooked rugs; nearby chairs wear a Brunschwig & Fils fabric with leopard stripes. The Directoire-style bergère is covered in a robin's egg silk strié from Jim Thompson.

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Fernando Bengoechea

A Fancy Foyer

A scalloped wood-and-gesso mirror above a lacquered bench in the foyer shows the reflection of a photograph taken in Peru by the American photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe, famous for her Harper's Bazaar fashion work.

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Fernando Bengoechea

A Jewel Box Hallway

Guests emerging from the elevator find themselves in a jewel box of a hall with dark lacquered walls and floor. A mid-20th-century Italian mirror hangs over an 18th-century English demilune table with a burlwood top.

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Fernando Bengoechea

A Romantic Bedroom

A blue strié from Clarence House appears on the bed and the windows. The fruitwood desk is an 18th-century French piece that Hadley paired with a new saddle-seat chair upholstered in a Zimmer + Rohde woven cotton.

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Fernando Bengoechea

Dining in Style

The dining room has a light blue ceiling, a favorite Hadley hue for the upper plane. The American Empire mahogany armoire is topped by a Tibetan gong. Next to them are two works on paper by Connecticut artist Mark Sciarillo, also a metalworker, who made the sculpted bronze base of the living room's coffee table. The vellum lampshade, the Eyelet gold-on-ivory wallpaper, and the chairs are all Hadley's designs.

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Fernando Bengoechea

A Combination of Styles

Against his own Reddish Rose wallpaper, Hadley combined the owners' Louis XVI-style commode with some elaborately carved 20th-century side chairs and a Baroque mirror.

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Fernando Bengoechea

A Striking Red Powder Room

Hadley made the powder room "very Hollywood" with a glamorous 1930s mirror, gilded iron sconces of his own design, and red wallpaper from Clarence House.

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Fernando Bengoechea

A Masculine Study

Under the unique iridescent painted ceiling in the brown study stand many Hadley designs. One is the coffee table made from wood and lacquered to simulate the parchment surface of Jean-Michel Frank's 1930s prototype. The red sofa's fabric is from Roger Arlington.

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The living room furnishings are a mix of the worldly and the simple.

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The distinctive stripe upholstering the slipper chairs is an old Hadley favorite. Zebra-patterned hooked rugs are his design.

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English Regency chairs in the chocolate brown dining room. The gilt ceramic gourd was made by a friend, Cockie Hyde.

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The guest bedroom's four-poster is a family heirloom.

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A pink-striped master bedroom, where tinsel pictures and mercury glass sparkle in the sun.

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This is a formal mahogany-paneled living room with lavender chairs and sofa. "Lavender is the new beige," says Albert Hadley. The chairs facing each other across the original Jean-Michel Frank split-bamboo coffee table exhibit the low horizontal lines and squared cubic surfaces characteristic of Modernism — with the surprise of chocolate brown satin upholstery. Furniture that has an architectural quality is a favorite of Albert Hadley.

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